Accountability for the Yogyakarta plane crash that killed 21 people including five Australians needs to go beyond the pilot, a victim's sister says.

On March 7, 2007 a Garuda Airline 737 overshot the runway then exploded in flames at Yogyakarta airport in Indonesia.

"Someone else higher than him (the pilot) also needs to be taking accountability for it, whether it be Garuda as such or Indonesian aviation as a whole," Caroline Mellish told ABC Radio.

Ms Mellish's journalist brother Morgan died in the crash.

Pilot Marwoto Komar (Marwoto Komar), 46, faces a possible life sentence under a charge of causing death by deliberately destroying an aircraft.

"I think obviously he was flying the plane and was responsible for the crash in a lot of respects but there are far greater issues in regards to aviation in Indonesia, in regards to safety surrounding airports, in regard to pilot training," Ms Mellish said.

"By putting him in jail just says he was the only one that was responsible."

Komar is expected to be formally charged today when his trial begins in Slemen District Court, in Yogyakarta in central Java.

Five judges will hear the case, which is expected to run for several months.

The Australians killed in the crash were Mellish, diplomat Liz O'Neill, AusAID official Allison Sudradjat, and Australian Federal Police Officers Brice Steele and Mark Scott.

They had been travelling to Yogyakarta for an official visit by the then foreign minister Alexander Downer.